


Post Traumatic Bull Shit

by Xenay



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: C-PTSD, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Drug Use, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Mental Illness, No actual rape scenes, Non-epileptic seizures, Overdose, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, complex PTSD, only implied pieces in flashbacks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:08:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23228386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xenay/pseuds/Xenay
Summary: “Have you ever felt... not safe, as a child?”PTSD is PTBS in German and the title is totally what it stands for. ...okay it's not but it's what I call it.This has NO Johnlock shipping or Any other ship. It deals with the problems that C-PTSD from sexual abuse on a child comes with and those alone.Songs that I find describe it wonderfully are:NF - MansionEvanescence - UnderstandingThere will be no love cure, no cure sex, no nothing! Read at your own risk, you have been warned. (If you're like me you'll read it anyways just to be triggered.)Now that that's out of the way, this story starts from the unaired pilot, then continues with the other episodes, with a few added scenes.The warnings are only about what is implied. No actual scenes except for bits of flashbacks will be described!!Because this story is 90% of how I discovered it and dealt with it until now (some things were changed to fit into this universe) comments will be monitored.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 26





	1. Anything at all

**Author's Note:**

> Trailer video (let's see how long it will exist) :
> 
> https://youtu.be/S5ugd-U9PBk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains some spoilers for the Netflix Series ‘Unbelievable’.

  
Sherlock Holmes was perfectly fine. Sure, he wasn’t like other people, and not many people actually liked him, but he was completely, utterly fine.

Until he met John Watson. 

No, he didn’t have feelings for him or whatever you might think now. Ironically enough, this starts out with exactly that question though.

“You have a girlfriend? To feed you up sometimes?” John had asked him in the restaurant while they were waiting for their suspect to make an appearance.

Sherlock frowned at him. “Is that what girlfriends do? ‘Feed you up’?"

John looked at him. “You don’t have a girlfriend, then?”

"It’s not really my area.”

John hmm-ed and looked through the menu. Then looked back up at Sherlock in mild surprise at what was implied. “Do you have a boyfriend? Which is fine, by the way.”

Sherlock was even more taken aback now. “I know it’s fine.”

“So you don’t have a boyfriend then.” “No.” He had answered too quickly. The questions were making feel weird. The topic always did, for some unknown reason.

“Fine. Okay. You’re unattached, like me,” John said, looking back down. “Good.”

Sherlock frowned at him. He didn’t like where this was going. At all. 

“John... you should know that I consider myself married to my work and while I’m flattered by your interest I am  _really_ not looking for  **_any kind _****_of_** -“ John seemed very surprised and Sherlock didn’t know why. 

“No, no I wasn’t asking you out. No. I’m just saying, it’s all fine.”

And that was that. They separated a few minutes later, Sherlock ready to catch the murderer himself instead of letting Lestrade have the honors. But something went wrong.

Something went horribly, horribly wrong.

When he woke up in 221B, half paralyzed from being drugged, on the floor, with the cab driver pacing next to him, he didn’t feel brave.

Because what he said next

Would change his life forever.

_ “I could do anything I wanted to you right now, Mister Holmes. Anything at all.” _

...

Sherlock woke up drenched in sweat, and in an unreasonable panic. Panting, he looked around his pitch black room. He couldn't see any threat, so he tried to force his heart to slow down. 

His clothes were completely drenched in sweat, clinging to his cold skin as he shivered. 

Was he getting sick?

Probably just his body still getting rid of the tranquilizer. He didn’t ponder on it much, all that was on his mind right now was to get a hot shower.

The entire flat was still completely dark, and only the stars and street lights were shining through the windows. It was probably around midnight. How dull.

Sherlock stumbled drunkenly to the bathroom. John wouldn’t hear him from upstairs, so...

Long after the shower, he couldn’t fall back asleep. He tossed and turned in his bed for hours. He was so tired, but he just couldn’t fall asleep. 

When it was nearing five in the morning, Sherlock finally managed to sleep again.

...

John was a bit surprised when he came downstairs and there was no sign of the detective. But they had just solved a taxing case, and Sherlock had been drugged with something, so John didn’t really worry.

-

Sherlock got hurt on a case. He'd just had to open his smart mouth, and earned himself a forceful kick to the stomach. 

Once the suspect had been captured, John had taken him to the surgery for an ultrasound scan.

What he hadn't expected was for Sherlock to be so incredibly reluctant at having John go near his abdomen with his hands. 

He had finally gotten him to cooperate enough to lower his pants (after lots of reassurance that, no, he wouldn't go below his boxers, people would talk, thank you very much) and now the detective kept moving his knees up and was too tense for John to actually see anything deeper. 

Sherlock was silently crying as traitorous tears were trailing down the sides of his eyes as he tried to keep his breathing somewhat normal. He couldn't help the flinches whenever John came the tiniest bit too far down to his groin with the device. It was stupid. John would never- .. what exactly? What was he so afraid of? It didn't make any sense, yet he completely panicked, when he knew that John would never hurt him. 

John was frowning deeply at the scene. He acted as though John was cutting him apart with a knife, instead of just trying to check with an ultrasound if he had internal bleeding anywhere. He decided to stop when he couldn't find anything, and just gave Sherlock a few minutes to calm down and collect himself.

When Sherlock took the paper towels and cleaned his skin from the gel, John asked "did something happen to make you... not like to be touched like this?"

"If only I knew." Was Sherlock's muttered reply. Had he not been so out of it, he probably wouldn't have said that.

John didn't question him further.

-

Sherlock found a lot of bruises littering his legs when he showered. 

Quite puzzled, he checked himself over with the bathroom mirror. Something he avoids doing, as it always made him feel strangely vulnerable every time he was naked. Even just a sheet would do. 

He found a bunch more green and yellow bruises on the backs of his upper arms.

He also found a couple thin scratches.

His mind thought back to when he was a child and kept waking up to new scratches and bruises somewhere on his body. He had always claimed that there was a demon in his bed that tried to hurt him in his sleep.

Nobody had believed him, obviously. Everyone said that he scratched himself in his sleep - some scratches were in areas that were impossible to reach himself, so that was out of the question - , or maybe a feather got loose from inside his pillow.

Then it had miraculously stopped happening, and Sherlock had stopped caring and thinking about it.

Now they were back.

This needed further investigation.

-

Sherlock was occupying the entirety of their sofa, hands in praying position as he entered his mind palace.

He was looking for memories on how he ended up with so many bruises. He hadn't exactly had any cases that ended up in fights, so this had come as a surprise.

He went down the stairs to the cellar and found that there was... smoke?

-

"What is that ruckus up here at night?" Mrs Hudson asked the two men a two days later.

"What ruckus?" Sherlock asked, panic slowly rising in his blood. Had there been someone in their flat and he hadn't noticed??

"A lot of thumping. Every night. Sometimes weird noises."

Sherlock and John looked at each other. 

"We haven't heard anything." Said John. "Maybe it was the neighbors."

-

Sherlock had his phone audio record next to his bed at night from then on.

What he got in the mornings was disturbing, to say the least. Using earphones as not to raise suspicion, he scrolled through the hours, only playing where there were big waves of sound activity.

His stomach clenched when he heard himself seemingly fight something in his sleep, abusing his poor mattress and making the most pathetic whimpers.   
Good lord, what was he dreaming about? He had no recollection whatsoever. It was all blank.

He had his phone record the next nights as well, and had the same results again and again. Intriguing. And very disturbing.

-

  
They had a case. Murderer kidnaps random children, brings them somewhere and kills them where no one could see it.

They had found the girl before it could come to that. But not before she had been violated.

Sherlock's brain seemed to have turned off after the revelation.

-

"Are you even sleeping?" John once asked him bluntly.

"Yes, you keep nagging me to, remember? Why?"

"Because you have really dark shadows under your eyes."

Sherlock used a white concealer on them since that day. 

-

There was a door behind all the smoke. 

It had a lot of locks and seemed to be made of incredibly thick steel. 

Apparently he had locked something away, a long time ago, because he didn't remember it ever putting there.

And had made sure that it wouldn't be open any time soon.

Curiosity killed the cat and in this case, Sherlock started breaking off the locks.

-

Caught off guard and being strangled on the floor of Soo Lin's flat had definitely not been his plan.

But what surprised him more was the onslaught of... memories? No. No. He could feel pain. A burning pain in his rear end. And why did it smell like smoke? 

Not cigarette smoke. Not smoke from a burning building or burned food. 

He could identify 243 types of tobacco ash but this smell was something else.

He couldn't focus. His brain was all fuzzy.

What was happening?

-

Months later came the Moriarty debacle. 

Solving the puzzles and saving people from getting blown up was a fairly nice change. He could completely focus on that, and temporarily forget all about what was wrong with himself. 

John wasn't too pleased with it, and neither was Greg, but it didn't matter to him.

Until one of the victims got blown up for talking about Moriarty.

-

Sherlock was tired. So incredibly tired. But he couldn't get any rest when he slept. He knew that much.

John was getting suspicious why he kept napping in the afternoon. 

John couldn't know. 

Nobody could know.

-

John once came down at night to fetch a new water bottle because he had forgotten to take a new one upstairs. 

He could hear Sherlock moving frantically in his bedroom, and dared to peek inside.

He was still for about twenty seconds before he seemed to be running in his sleep again.

John smiled. 'Chasing suspects in your sleep now, huh?'

He left him to sleep, never hearing the pained whimpers, followed by the slamming of feet as Sherlock thrashed about in his night terrors.

-

While John was at the surgery, Sherlock took his chance. He looked through his flatmate's room until he found the half empty package of strong antidepressants, also used for PTSD. 

John hadn't taken any of them in a long time. He won't miss them.

-

Thanks to the meds, he managed to sleep through the night. He still didn't really get much rest, if the ever present dark rings and bone deep exhaustion were anything to go by, but that didn't matter. Make-up still hid those, no matter how dark they got, and he could fight off this different tiredness to some extent. He still slept a lot more than he was used to, though.

And thanks to the meds, he could safely enter his mind palace. He had used a fire extinguisher to get some of the smoke to disappear and worked on breaking the remaining locks.

Any time he was near the door, he got more and more information as new bits and pieces were revealed. It didn't matter how more disturbing they became, he needed answers.

Only 5 more to go.

-

Sherlock only continued on his mind palace quest when he was in his own room, with a locked door. 

Keeping notes on his progress became more like writing a secret diary; every time John so much as made a sound - even when he was upstairs in his own bedroom - Sherlock was overcome with panic, because the doctor had once caught him writing on his phone and questioned it.

Nobody could know. 

He put a digital lock on the note. 

Password protected.

Nobody could know.

-

"Molly.. could you do something for me?" Sherlock timidly asked as he approached her. 

"Yes, of course." She replied, looking at him with questioning eyes.

"I need you to prescribe something.."

She blinked. "Sherlock you know I can't prescribe you meds-"

"I know, but it's not for me."

She relented a bit. "What do you need."

Sherlock took out the empty package from his pocket and handed them over. 

Molly frowned as she looked at the name. "Sherlock those are- they are for-"

"Yes, I know. They are for John. His.. you know.. PTSD is giving him trouble again but he won't go and get them himself."

Molly was a bit shocked to be honest. This was, after all, the most sentimental and thoughtful thing that Sherlock had ever done. "Okay, I'll do it." She said, turning to a computer. When she printed it out, she asked "is he seeing his therapist again, then?"

"No. No, I don't think so.."

"Well I think that he really should.." Molly said, concern worrying her brows as she handed him the piece of paper. 

"Thanks Molly."

"You're welcome. Give John my regards."

-

Irene Adler was a very interesting person. 

For the shortest while, Sherlock actually thought she could become a reliable ally. 

That thought dissipated the second she was one step ahead of him, tranquilized him and hit him with a riding crop. 

He was powerless on the floor as she towered over him, and he was assaulted by the demons still looming inside his mind palace.

Repeatedly he tried to fight them off, tried to get off the floor. It wasn't real. The hands, the pain, it all  _ wasn't. real. _

-

He had done it. 

He had broken down all of the locks.

  
-

After waking up three times in a row from night terrors, which he couldn't fathom why they were back, John had looked for his meds. He could have sworn that he still had them somewhere, but after looking for two hours he just gave up.

He went into the surgery to get a new package of his meds. 

As he waited for the receptionist to print it out, he saw Molly rushing by. "Hey Molly."

She stopped immediately in her tracks and smiled at him. "Oh, hello John. How are you doing?" 

"Alright, I guess." 

"I hope you know that there is no shame in admitting to have problems with PTSD, John." She said gently.

John didn't wonder how she even knew about that. "Yeah, well.." he pointed to the lady behind him. "Getting my meds. First step and all that."

Molly smiled. "It's great, John. I have to go, but it's nice to see you again, John. Take care. I'm glad you're getting them yourself again." She said and hurried away.

"Yeah, thanks." John said absently as he took the receipt. He frowned. "That I'm getting them myself? What did you mea-" he turned around himself, but Molly was nowhere to be seen.

-

John had asked Molly about his medication. She told him that Sherlock had come to her to get him his meds, seemingly confused.

John explained to her that the only time he had his meds was when he went to get them himself.

Both became angry at the revelation. John decided not to confront Sherlock about it yet, he wanted to see wether the detective would come clean on his own accord.

The next time Sherlock had to be in the lab, Molly slapped him for fooling everyone.

When he ran out of pills again, he bought a bottle of tiny valerian pills as a last resort.

-

John was startled awake at night again. But this time, instead of hearing his own scream as he got shot, he heard  _Sherlock_ scream. As he bolted into a sitting position, he also realized that it hadn't been in his dream, but in real life. 

He grabbed his gun and practically flew downstairs. 

There was no one in the flat so far, and when he got to Sherlock's bedroom he found the detective having a nightmare. 

Sighing in relief, John lowered the gun and to his surprise, Sherlock woke by himself in that moment.

Sherlock only saw a dark figure standing in front of his bed and let out a yelp as his heart skipped a beat. He immediately sat up and prepared himself to... he was frozen in momentary shock.

"It's okay! It's just me - John - it's just me, Sherlock."

Sherlock had to take ten valerian pills to fall back asleep, two hours later.

-

Baskerville had been.... interesting, to say the least. 

Being in completely foreign territory, with a lot of strangers staying in the same hotel... it had made him uneasy.

He hadn't been able to bring the pills with him. Living in the same hotel room and having to sleep in the same bed made it impossible to take them in secret. Bad arrangement from his brother, and quite possibly on purpose. He was surprised his meddling brother hadn't done anything else, yet.

Speaking of sleeping together: they had slept together for exactly 3 hours and 37 minutes. Sherlock had woken up because he had subconsciously tried to push whatever it was next to him, away, by hitting it repeatedly with his elbow. Until he woke because the thing wasn't moving. 

With a racing heart he awoke, and remembered that he had gone to bed with John. 

The  _thing_ he had been trying to push away in his sleep had been  _John._

Utterly mortified, Sherlock prayed he hadn't woken him. 

He watched his friend for a while, letting out the breath he'd been holding when John didn't show any signs of having stirred awake. 

He hoped John wouldn't have bruises in the morning. He had hit him hard, repeatedly, on his arm with his elbow. Hard enough to wake himself up in a panic. Probably kicked him, too.

Sherlock fled the bed, and spent the night down in the hotel's lobby, a blanket wrapped around himself as he kept an eye on the windows, stairs and doors at all times and prayed that nobody would come down here and see him. Or worse, do something to him.

  
...

Then there was also the case. They had gone out to the hollows with a mental Henry.

Instead of seeing a dog, a hound; Sherlock had seen a shadow. A shadowy figure, coming towards him. It definitely did not resemble the shadow of a creature, other than a human.

Before long, he was a shaking mess. And then John left him.

He was alone in this.

  
  


-

Sherlock couldn’t close the door anymore.

So when he decided to burn down the room in a last attempt at reversing ever opening the door, he ended up burning down his entire mind palace, barely escaping before the flames spread behind him.

Only, it didn’t stop the sensations and nightmares from happening, didn’t make the paranoia and anxiety disappear.   
  


It only resulted in Sherlock now being too afraid to enter his own mind palace now, too.

He wasn’t safe. Nowhere.

-

Reading through articles on PTSD, suppressed memories, and night terrors gave him a sense of utter forlorn.

At some point he wouldn't be able to keep it to himself anymore.

And then there’d be questions he didn’t have answers to, or complete disbelief.

He was doomed.

-

Everyone in the Yard was talking about one thing: 'Unbelievable'. 

"What's unbelievable?" John asked Donovan at some point. 

"A Netflix series. A really good one."

John had decided to see it himself. Sherlock was watching with him, although it was very hard to stay focused on the screen when he felt like the pain inside his arse would tear him apart, and the smoke that traveled through his nose up into his brain kept him feeling dizzy.

...

The more everyone in the show started to distrust her and say that she faked it, the more the nervousness in his stomach built. 

Sherlock knew that if he ever told someone, they wouldn't believe him. And this is what he would get for it. Everyone would leave him. 

He couldn't recall much of the episodes. Only how they had triggered him every time. 

-

John and Sherlock were just walking down the streets. It was getting late, the sun was slowly setting. They had gone to eat out and were just on their way back to the flat.

Someone was following them.

Sherlock was sure of it. The guy had been behind them for the better part of the past ten minutes, and was much too close to them for comfort.

The detective was just waiting for the guy to make a move. In his coat pocket his fingers curled around the gun he had stolen from John in a moment where he had felt so incredibly unsafe.

The stranger was right behind him. He could hear him breathing. 

It was deeply unsettling.

He looked at John walking next to him without a care in the world. How foolish.

He must have slowed down, because the other guy slightly bumped into him, and it was as if a bomb just exploded.

Sherlock whirled around, gun pointed at the guy's head, yelling "GET AWAY!"

The poor sod was terrified. He slowly held up his hands and backed up with wide eyes on Sherlock and the gun. "C-calm down, man, p-please, I-"

John came to his rescue. After a small shock of 'when did he take my gun?!' he took it away from Sherlock, yelling at him, asking him what the hell was wrong with him. These weren’t his usual ‘chasing down suspects on my own’ antics. This was downright ‘I’m going mental’.

The guy ran off, John pocketed his gun, and lectured Sherlock on the rest of the way home.

Mycroft called him later that day, demanding an explanation.

Sherlock couldn't tell him. 

-

John forced him to see a therapist, since he refused to say a single word to Mycroft and himself. 

She seemed to be able to see his pain. Made an effort to get him to open up.

But he couldn't. He didn't trust her. Didn’t trust her not to say anything to anyone.

He couldn't tell her.

-

He had gotten new bits of information in his flashbacks. 

He could hear his tiny voice screaming "NO!!!" before he heard the ghost of the pedophile laugh that specific laugh. This 'I'm going to do this to you and you can't do anything about it' laugh. 

...

Once, when he was using the bathroom and accidentally slipped the tiniest bit inside with the toilet paper under his fingers while wiping himself, he had immediately shuddered. His legs were trembling and he felt faint. 

He couldn't even wipe his own ass without being triggered.

He needed help.

He couldn't keep going like this.

He had almost shot a guy's head off for Christ sake!

He washed and dried his hands, trying to calm down. On shaky legs he walked out of the bathroom and sought out John.

John would understand. 

John wasn't like everyone else.

"John." He hated how desperate his voice sounded.

The doctor seemed as shocked as he was. "What's wrong?"

"John I-" his breath hitched. He couldn't say it. He couldn't. He looked away. "Never mind.." he said and made to get away but John held him by his arm, startling Sherlock for a moment. 'John won't hurt you. John is safe.'

"Please. Please tell me." John begged. He had tried so many times to get Sherlock to open up. He refused to let his opportunity slip like sand between his fingers. 

Sherlock took a deep breath. "I.. I was.... raped.."

Time stood still for a minute. Sherlock felt his heart stop when John let go of his arm and glared at him.

"Is this because of Unbelievable? You watch something and get a stupid idea into your head? Is that it?" John threw at him, and Sherlock seemed to shrink in on himself as John towered over him.

"N-no! Why would I- why would I be faking?!"

"Because you lie all the time! It's like your mission! Molly told me how you had her prescribe my pills! You just take anything you can to get a fix, do you!?" 

Sherlock fled into his room and didn't come out for the rest of the day. 

Not even the valerian pills could calm his crippling anxiety and thoughts.

-

The first and only time he had seen this Moriarty guy was from the recording of his break in at the museum, where he wrote ‘Get Sherlock’ on the glass before breaking it down.  
Nobody could explain why he wrote that and what it meant, but he had been in custody until the trial.

...

Before Moriarty's trial, Sherlock had taken to the bathrooms in order to compose himself. It was all starting to become too much for him to deal with.

Just when he thought he had himself under control, came Kitty Riley inside. Invading his personal space, she made him extremely uneasy as he pressed his back against the sinks in a useless attempt to gain some space between them.

She was talking, but he didn't hear her. He was trapped in his own panic.

  
...

John waited in vain, Sherlock never showed up in the trial.

-

While John was still in the courtroom, Sherlock had gone to an abandoned building where he had hidden a secret stash. 

He was _done._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to explain the Moriarty situation:  
> In The Great Game, the ending pool scene with John etc doesn’t happen here, and neither does Moriarty show up at his flat before the trial.  
> The rest should be self explanatory.


	2. Do not open

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit more insight on what’s been going through Sherlock’s mind.

  
John sat in the courtroom, wondering where in the world Sherlock had disappeared to. The trial wasn't getting anywhere, and he was bored out of his mind.

His phone vibrated in his pockets, and he immediately went for it, thinking it might be Sherlock.

Close enough, it was his brother.

Mycroft: Come to Kings Cross immediately. SH overdosed.

Shit. ShitshitshitshitshitSHIT!!! He abruptly stood up, the chair screeching on the floor. "I'm sorry your honor, I have to leave immediately, it's an emergency!" Without waiting for an answer he stormed out, ignoring the stares of the judges, Greg and Moriarty.

-

Once John caught sight of the elder Holmes he immediately ran up to him. "How is he?"

"Stable. For now. Not a pretty sight. He’s asleep right now, and the doctors want him to rest undisturbed.” 

John hmm-ed, not knowing what else to say to that. He had no doubt in mind that Mycroft would have stayed with him otherwise.

"I want to know why. What made him do this? He was clean for so long.." Mycroft said with a bit of disappointment, though it was only partly direct at Sherlock. Mycroft blamed himself.

...

While Sherlock was unconscious in the hospital, Mycroft and John looked through the entire flat.

“He must have something on his phone. I’ve caught him doing something with it and then locking it the second he noticed that I was there.” John explained.

“I can’t believe that I’ve let it come to this..” Mycroft muttered as he checked the living room while John searched Sherlock’s bedroom.

“Hey, if anything, it was Me who let him down.” John argued. “He tried to tell me and I just waved him off and told him to stop lying to my face..” he said bitterly.

John discovered the valerian pills in between Sherlock's socks cabinet. He frowned slightly. Sherlock must have really been desperate for any kind of relief. And he also hadn’t wanted to use his usual drugs for a pretty long time then, too, if he remembered correctly about his own meds. He shuddered, don’t think about this again.

“Found it,” Mycroft suddenly said and came to the doctor with the black iPhone in his hands. “Now let’s see..” he said and checked in the settings for the most used app. ‘Notes’ had the third most with 6 hours, after 'Safari' with 14, and 'Voice Memos' with over 30 hours of use, so that’s where he went first. If there was something important going on, Mycroft knew his little brother would keep notes about it.

John almost laughed when he saw the title. “ ‘Do not open’, very creative.”

“It’s locked. Password protected.” Mycroft stated and John’s smile vanished.

“What would he use? He can figure all our passwords out in a matter of minutes. What would a genius like him use?”

Mycroft thought for a moment. He tapped on ‘enter password’ and typed in ‘John’.

Wrong password. 2 more tries remaining.

“Shit. Okay, can’t you use a laptop to hack it or something?” John asked, worried.

“Knowing my brother, the note would just delete itself if we tried to hack into it. We need clues..” Mycroft explained.

Speaking of laptop, John got an idea and grabbed Sherlock’s mini laptop. “Let’s look through his search history.”

“He’ll have deleted it.”Mycroft said matter of factly.

John grinned. “You should know more about laptops, Mycroft. If you use a specific code, you can see everything that was ever done on this thing. Including web searches.” He explained. Mycroft may be the British Government, but John knew a bit about technology. After all, he had learned from the best.

“Alright, you try that and I’ll look through his history on his phone.” Mycroft said and they both got to work.

After a while of clicking around, John suddenly frowned. Mycroft raised an eyebrow at him. “Your plan not working?”

“No.. it’s not that..” John trailed off, not believing the words he was reading.

“What is it?” Mycroft asked and came over.

The screen was filled with strange scribbles but between them you could make out letters and words. A lot of the searches and opened pages had the words of ‘ptsd’ ‘trauma’ ‘no memory’ ‘suppressed memories’ ‘repressed memories’ ‘night sweats’ ‘night terrors’ and, to both their horror, the words ‘rape’ and ‘sexual assault’.

“Jesus... WHEN?!” Mycroft growled, suddenly overwhelmed with intense rage.

“Wait, give me his phone.” John said. “I think I got it.”

Mycroft handed over the phone and had to go and pace about. He couldn’t believe it.

John entered the letters ‘PTSD’ and hit ‘enter’. The note loaded, containing a ton of words. “Mycroft.” He called him over as he started reading.

_Something is wrong with me._

_Every night I wake up, completely drenched in sweat, and in unreasonable panic. With no recollection of what I was even dreaming about. I don’t have any fevers otherwise, so I’m not getting sick, as I first thought._

_Need further investigation._

_Tried going through my mind palace. I found smoke in the cellar. Need further investigation._

_I audio recorded the night with my phone after Mrs Hudson complained of 'ruckus at night'. Went through it this morning. Disturbing results. Probably found the reason for the bruises._

John recalled the night where he had watched him and thought he was chasing suspects in his sleep. It was probably more that he had been trying to _escape_ something, rather than chase it. If he cried out in his sleep, then that was probably why I started having my own nightmares again as some weird chain reaction.

And what bruises?

_We had a case yesterday. The missing girl is still alive, but it turns out that she had been_

The sentence just stops there.

_Went to the mind palace again. There seems to be a door behind the thick smoke but I cannot open it. It’s locked with fifteen different locks and the door seems to be made from ten centimeters of thick steel. The smoke that blocks the vision to it is actually coming from whatever is behind that door. It’s seeping out. Which indicates, that the door isn’t completely sealed. I'm going to try to open it._

John already knew where this was going to go. Sherlock you idiot, if something is locked away like this it was probably for a very good reason.

_I stole some pills from John’s room while he was out. He doesn’t take them anymore, so he won’t notice it._

_Didn’t plan on the side effects. I can sleep now, though I sleep a LOT, now. I didn’t take into consideration how sluggish they would make me. John never told me how they made him so tired and forget everything. I can’t remember a thing that happened yesterday. Actually, I also don’t even remember what happened this morning. At least I don’t wake up drenched in sweat anymore._

John frowned at that. Sherlock had taken his meds without informing him? What if he'd had a reaction to them? He already knew that he had asked Molly for them but that he had taken the ones he still had was news to him. It would explain why he hadn't had them anymore when he needed them.

And they don’t cause memory problems. He had never heard of that before, neither from himself, others or from the package insert.

_I used a fire extinguisher and got the smoke to dissipate for a while. Managed to remove two locks from the door before John broke me out of it to eat._

_I don’t know what’s going on. Every time I go near the door, I smell the smoke again, even though it’s gone. And I’m in pain, in places I didn’t know it was possible to feel pain._

John’s frown deepened. Pain?

_Broke three more locks. Besides the smoke and the pain, I’m starting to feel giant cold hands on my thighs._

Oh dear god, please stop, Sherlock. Stop breaking locks. John pleaded in his head. Mycroft, next to him, looked like he was about to be sick.

_God, the pain is getting worse. I didn’t think it was possible but I think I was actually trapped in my mind palace after I broke five more locks. I’m so close now. I can hear someone laughing. He sounds relatively young, maybe just in his mid 20s or starting 30s._

Please don’t continue, oh god just stop this, Sherlock. You know what is about to happen. John prayed but he knew that Sherlock must have opened that door.

_I did it_

That seemed to be the last of Sherlock’s own words for a while as he seemed to have copy pasted parts of articles into here. Desperate to get the facts, isn’t he? Oh Sherlock..

The 17 Signs of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Signs of PTSD can range from flashbacks to nightmares, panic attacks to eating disorders and cognitive delays to lowered verbal memory capacity. Many trauma survivors also encounter substance abuse issues, as they attempt to self-medicate the negative effects of PTSD.

The most common cause of night sweats in our practice is not tuberculosis or human immunodeficiency virus, but post-traumatic stress disorder. When patients present with night sweats, they are usually referring to night terrors when they awaken soaking wet and in terror after flashback-nightmares.

At first, hidden memories that can't be consciously accessed may protect the individual from the emotional pain of recalling the event. But eventually those suppressed memories can cause debilitating psychological problems, such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or dissociative disorders.

Generally, you can't tell if someone has a repressed memory simply by just looking at them. This is because individuals that have a repressed memory do not know that they actually have one.

John didn’t really need to think about the whole PTSD parts, he knew all about that. What he never thought of was the possibility that Sherlock could have had it, too.

He scrolled further down. More notes.

_The smoke that was coming from the room had been from a fire. I must have tried to burn this room a long time ago._

_I can’t close the door anymore. I almost shot someone because he had walked behind me, because everything seems to make me uneasy, lately. Why can’t I lock the door again?_

John winced. He knew why he couldn’t. God Sherlock, I'm so sorry I didn't believe you..

_I don’t know why I thought it would work now, when it obviously hadn’t worked before, but I tried to burn the room down. I can’t close the door anymore, so I ended up burning my whole mind palace down in the process._

_I’m too afraid to try to enter it again._

John didn’t blame him.

_The room must still exist. It doesn’t stop. Why won’t it leave me alone?!_

John felt his heart clench. He could hear the desperation in that. How long had Sherlock suffered in silence, while everyone else was so painfully oblivious to his struggles? The note only tells you the date it was last changed, which was.. four months ago.

_John can’t know. Nobody can know. I’d rather die than have anyone know and look at me like_

The note ended there, and John felt somehow insulted. Sherlock didn’t want him to know? His best and only friend wasn’t allowed to know when he was hurting? Granted, with the way he reacted he never deserved his friend's trust in the first place.

Mycroft looked at the date at the top of the screen. He took the phone from John's hands and tapped on it.

_Note created: February 3rd, 2018_

He felt his blood run cold. His brother had been dealing with this for over two years on his own?!

"Mycroft, what are we going to do?" John asked the elder.

Mycroft looked stricken. He pressed the home button and looked for the audio recordings. He needed to know.

"Mycroft, what are you doing? Haven't we pried enough already?!" John snapped, but deep inside he was just as curious.

"I need to know." Was all the man said and scrolled through one of the 7 hour recordings, John watching over his shoulder.

When he finally found a spike in the sound waves, he raised the phone’s volume and pressed [play](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Le67L8Od8Uo).

'Disturbing' didn't even begin to describe what they heard. If they hadn't known that he was asleep, they would have said he was being raped all over again, just without any noises from an attacker.

Mycroft almost threw the phone into John's hands before he rushed to the bathroom to throw up. John immediately pressed the pause button. He'd heard enough.

“John, come here.” Mycroft called over, a bit after he had flushed the toilet,

John put the phone down and went to the other in the bathroom. “What is it?”

Mycroft held up what seemed to be Make-up pens. “You know.. addicts can be masters at deceiving others.” He let the pens fall into the sink. “I’m guessing he had some physical signs that he wanted to get rid of to hide his secret?”

John had to think for a while. It had been so long ago, but.. “I asked him if he was sleeping, because he had dark rings under his eyes. Now that I think about it, they disappeared pretty much right after I said that, which couldn’t have happened naturally.” John could kick himself for being so stupidly ignorant. He was a doctor for Christ sakes! He should have _seen_!

John deserved every single time when Sherlock called him an idiot.

“I want to know who did this. When he did this. And where.” Mycroft said darkly.   
“Any babysitters when you two were young? It’s just.. that’s the case most of the time.” John provided (un)helpfully.

Mycroft put his hands over his face. “Our parents were barely home. We had at least 30 babysitters over the years. It could have been anyone.” John bit his lip. That definitely complicated matters. His phone suddenly rang, startling them both.   
  
It was Greg. “John?”

”Yeah.”

”John what’s wrong? The judges are taking a break to make their decision right now. You just stormed out of there. What’s going on?”

John tried to think of what to say. He didn’t really want to tell Greg that Sherlock had used drugs, much less that he overdosed. Because that would just bring up the big ‘why’ question, and for now it would be hard enough to deal with this whole thing in privacy. “He got hurt. He’s in hospital and we’re waiting for the call that he’s awake..”

”Who’s ‘we’?” Goddammit he just had to slip, didn’t he? Mycroft stepped closer and took over. “John and me, Gregory. Kindly let us deal with this and free the phone line.” John gave him a halfhearted frown at the coldness, but thankfully it seemed to work regardless.

”Alright.. let me know if you know anything, okay?”

”Sure.” Definitely not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s very difficult to write this, especially details, so please be patient with me. I keep dissociating every time I try to proof read, so I apologize for any mistakes.


	3. It doesn’t ever go according to plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m no doctor or nurse, so the accuracy on the medical procedures may be off.
> 
> Music for this chapter: Peter Heppner - Suddenly

  
Sherlock hadn’t planned on surviving. 

His plan had been to be dead, or at least for it to be too late, when someone found him. He hadn’t planned on Mycroft getting there right as he was done injecting the lethal dosis of morphine, storming in with paramedics. His memory was hazy, but as he tasted the active charcoal they had given him as he swallowed, he could remember them acting immediately, and his brother yelling at him from where he’d had to hold his head still.

He tried to look around the room. He was on his side, in recovery position to be exact, with a thin blanked draped over his body, facing the wall and a woman he’d never seen before. She gave him a small smile and checked his vitals on the monitor to his left, scribbling his stats on a clipboard. He could see the IV line, the saline bag and a smaller bag with what he presumed to be nalaxone, steadily fighting off his overdose. How dull.

”How are you feeling, sweetheart?” The nurse asked him kindly.   
Sherlock didn’t plan on answering her. He tried to push himself up to look around - not seeing the door was making him feel a slowly growing panic. He couldn’t bend his arm too well thanks to the IV line and bandages, and a foreign discomfort in his groin made him froze in his movements, and the nurse immediately came to him and put her hands on him. “Nonono sweetie, stay down. Everything is okay. You’re in hospital. Do you remember what happened?”   
“Don’t touch me.” Sherlock snapped in a small, hoarse voice. She withdrew her hands.   
“Alright, but stay like this. Would you like some water?” Sherlock couldn’t bring himself to say ‘yes’. She got up anyways and walked around him to fetch him said water. She came back with a small cup and held it to his lips, much to his dismay. “Alright sweetheart. We’ll just take it nice and slow, alright?”

Sherlock didn’t have it in him to be annoyed with her, although her names for him were a bit overbearing.

She set the cup down after he took a few sips, and took the clipboard into her hands again. “Can you tell me now what happened, dear? Do you remember anything?”

His brain was still catching up with everything, but he knew what she was getting at. She needed to know if he needed to be psych evaluated, wether the overdose had been intentional or not.

”I took some morphine.”

”Hmm. And you’ve used before?”

”..yes.”

”Recently? Before this, I mean?”

He shook his head. “I’ve been clean for years.”

”Alright. Any reason why you went back to them?”

Don’t make a mistake now. What you say now will be critical. “I guess I just gave in to the cravings. And misjudged my lowered tolerance due to the absence.”

She looked almost pitying. “Any drastic changes in your home life? Fights? Job problems?”

He shook his head again. 

“Okay.. can you tell me your name, your age, where you live?”

”Sherlock Holmes. 34 years old. 221B Baker Street.”

”Excellent.” She said happily and wrote more notes down. She clicked the pen. “I’m going to inform the doctor that you’re awake. Would you like me to call your brother?”

Sherlock heard his heart stumbling from the heart monitor. The nurse immediately looked at it and frowned. Then she looked at him again, still expecting him to answer.

Did he want his brother here? The answer: a definite **_no_**. Did he need his brother to get him out of here? Sadly, yes. But he wasn’t ready to face him, yet. Then again, he probably never would be ready for what was to come. The questions.

He looked down to the floor. It didn’t matter. In the end, Mycroft would just show up unannounced, anyways. The question was just wether or not he managed to disappear before his brother was here.

Though it probably _would_ be a bit obvious to leave in only a hospital gown.

He heard his heart stop beating for two seconds before it stumbled again. They had _undressed_ him. He suddenly realized that the discomfort was a _Foley catheter_. They had—

“Heey, hey honey it’s all fine.” The nurse was suddenly with him again, her hand hovering a little as she seemingly resisted the urge to touch him again in an attempt at calming him.   
He started to shake. His entire body trembling as if he were having a fit. He wished he was dead. He didn’t want to deal with all of this. Not now. Not anymore.   
The nurse had called something but it was lost to his ears. The heart monitor was blaring and ringing in his ears. He felt like he was going to be sick. All of his muscles were clenching and seizing and he felt lightheaded.

He dazedly saw the nurse unhook him from the IV to inject something else from a syringe into his port, before he fell back asleep.

* * *

Mycroft received the call that Sherlock had been awake, and had to be sedated due to a panic attack. 

John heard everything, and he felt guilty for not having been there for him, once again. 

“How are we going to go about this? I should have him sectioned, he is a danger to himself and others.” Mycroft said, though he really didn’t want this to happen. 

John shook his head at him. “We are going to pretend that we don’t know.” When Mycroft was about to argue, John added “only for a bit.” 

“John, you don’t understand. I need more information on this.. monster.”

“You are Not asking Sherlock about it! We could destroy everything further if we tell him that we know. He isn’t stable enough to handle this right now, Mycroft. We have to be careful.”

Mycroft seemed to ponder this. “I’m putting maximum surveillance on this flat, I will not leave him unsupervised. Who knows what he’s thinking. I can’t take that risk, not anymore.”

John wasn’t a fan of being watched 24/7 in his own flat, but he knew that this had to be. “Me neither.” He agreed. “See that your workers can get it done as soon as possible, while he’s not home.”

Mycroft nodded, already typing away on his mobile. 

John spoke up again when Mycroft sent the messages. “Speaking of... we should really go and be with him. Detoxing is never fun, and with him feeling unsafe, I don’t want him to be alone.” 

Mycroft nodded. “I’ll take you back to the hospital. Go pack your bags, I’ll see to it that you stay with him for however long it takes.”

“You’re not coming?” John inquired. 

Mycroft seemed... uncomfortable. “Remember that I have been with him when he was detoxing before, John. He wouldn’t want me to see him like that again. He would probably throw me out the second he sees me.”

John frowned at that. He knew that the brothers didn’t have the best history, but he would have thought that Mycroft would care enough to stick around.

“Do not fret, I know that he will be in very good hands with you by his side. You are probably the only person on this planet who he’d accept help from.” John felt another stab of pain as the guilt resurfaced. Mycroft’s face became dark. “Meanwhile, I will try to get the names of every single nanny and babysitter we ever had, and try to figure out who it was.” The elder Holmes started walking to the door.

As much as John wanted to find the culprit as well, he had to think realistic.“Mycroft, it happened probably 30 years ago. I don’t think you’ll have much luck.” 

Mycroft stopped and turned around to face John. 

“‘Luck’? He was lucky for much too long, John. If I find out who he is, no amount of luck will help him.” 


	4. On the edge

Mycroft was driven to his parents’ home. It was the easiest way to get all the names of the people who took care of him and Sherlock when they were too young to be left alone, whilst their parents were away for weeks on end because of work.

Slightly similar to how Mycroft is out of the country on a regular basis. The thought tastes bitter on his tongue. 

He should have known. 

He should have seen the signs.

The depressive episodes.

The drugs.

The lack of eating.

_ “Don’t be alarmed. It’s to do with sex.”  _ He had cheekily told his brother.

 _ “Sex doesn’t alarm me.”  _ Sherlock had replied much too fast. 

_ “How would you know?”  _

Mycroft could have slapped himself.

-

Sherlock didn’t expect to see John when he woke up again. After all, the two flat mates hadn’t exchanged more than a few words since Sherlock’s anxious admission and John’s accusations. 

This, combined with seeing his eyes staring at him as he woke up, was a little unsettling. 

“Hey..” John said softly, probably for a lack of something better to say to break the ice.

Sherlock didn’t reply anything, just kept staring at John. He was sadly unable to make any deductions, as he became aware of the problem that had caused them to sedate him. Apparently, any pain and discomfort in his groin area, no matter where, was enough to trigger the smoke and unsettling panic. His leg muscles tensed up against his will as his breathing (and heart rate; thanks to the monitor’s loud declaration) sped up.

“What’s wrong?” John asked, staring at him with concern. Was his presence triggering him, now? Because he hadn’t believed him initially? John wondered, feeling the guilt eating at him again.

Only when the IV port started irritating him, did Sherlock realize that his whole body was trembling again. Not like the chills that usually wrecked his body when he detoxed; this was something different. He was under a blanket and didn’t really feel cold, yet his body was shivering and trembling and twitching and tensing against his will. It didn’t help with the serious discomfort of the catheter, still stuck in an area where he never wanted anyone to be even remotely close to, ever again.

He stared pleadingly into John’s eyes.  _ Do something. Anything. Fix this. Please.It hurts. _

He couldn’t breathe.

John was suddenly leaning forward in his chair, and took Sherlock’s ice cold hands into his warm ones, Sherlock watching his every move. “Sherlock listen to me, everything is going to be okay. Alright? I’m not leaving you. You are safe. Nothing bad is going to happen.” It fell on death ears, but Sherlock still tried to calm himself down. 

It took a good five minutes of solely focusing on John’s warm touch, grounding him until he was down on earth again. 

“John.” Sherlock pleaded before swallowing the hoarseness.

“I’m here. I’m here, Sherlock.”

“John, take it out.” He urgently pleaded at the army doctor.

John was puzzled for a moment. “Take what out?” Did he mean the IV? Because that was definitely not happening.

Sherlock was struggling to speak again and slight tremors wrecked him again at the thought. 

“The catheter- please, I can’t stand it!” Sherlock actually begged now, and John felt his heart breaking. 

“Sherlock- I’m sorry but-.. they have to make sure your kidneys are still working.” John tried to explain, but he felt horrible for his friend. He debated calling a nurse and asking them if they couldn’t make an exception. He hated seeing Sherlock like this.

Sherlock was definitely not pleased with the answer, and was going to try to do it himself, but even remotely trying to sit up was proving to be insanely uncomfortable and his exerted pants started to become quicker and quicker until he was on the verge of hyperventilating.

“Okay, alright, I’ll do it. Okay?” John pleads, wondering since when Sherlock had a pass in John’s medical rule book. He’d be in so much trouble if they found out, but all be damned right now. 

John could, better than probably any of the staff here, understand why Sherlock was reacting this way.

But as soon as John stood up and moved a hand to grab the blanket that covered his body, Sherlock suddenly shrieked “No!” and began hyperventilating, hands moving up to his hair, tugging at his curls.

John was torn as he stared at his best friend in such obvious distress. Of course, John is a man. And to add salt into the wound, he had betrayed Sherlock’s trust not too long ago. 

“Hang on, I’m getting the ward sister.” John decides and, after taking one last glance at him, rushes from the room. 

He returns about two minutes later to a much calmer, but tear streaked Sherlock curled in on himself, fingers still tugging at his curls.

The ward sister checks his urine bag and gives her accompanying nurse a nod to get her the sterile gloves, while she disinfects her hands a second time since entering the patient room. 

The nurse quietly instructs John to leave the room for a moment, while the ward sister explains the process to a non responsive Sherlock.

When John is let back in to the room, the ward sister instructs Sherlock in a no-nonsense tone that he is to press the call button when he has to use the restroom, and isn’t to get up on his own at any point.

Once she leaves, John sits back down on the chair next to the bed. “Better?” He asks hesitantly. Sherlock does seem a lot calmer than before - although worn out would be a better description. 

He gets a minuscule of a nod as response. 

Not even five minutes later, Sherlock seems to have fallen asleep, and John wonders if the nurse had injected a benzo into Sherlock’s line. 

It suddenly becomes too much. He needs fresh air. 

John quietly gets up and leaves the room, gets to the station’s balcony area. 

There seems to be part of a family sitting on one of the benches, the teenage girl having nothing better to do than to stare down at her phone, while the father tries to entertain a five year old. 

John is standing at the far end, arms leaning on the fence that keeps people from falling down the two stories. 

When did everything become... this? Not so long ago they were solving cases, having fun... but it wasn’t all that, was it? Sherlock had been struggling on his own the whole time, and nobody -  _ John _ \- had noticed. 

Of course Sherlock had stolen his meds and faked getting a prescription; he was trying to self medicate without stronger substances, when he could no longer deal with it on his own. 

And then he had reached out to him. And John had done the worst thing in the worldhe could have possibly done. He had driven Sherlock to attempt to take his own life, and he might have succeeded if it hadn’t been for Mycroft.

As he stares down at the ground, not too far away to be a deadly leap but definitely a dizzying distance to look at, John remembers how close he had been to put a bullet to his own temple before he had met Sherlock.

Sherlock had saved his life. And John would make it his mission to redeem himself. To save Sherlock in the way that he had saved John.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for never updating, my physical health is declining and we don’t know why x.x


	5. Distress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had like six seizures (psychogenic) last night, so I figured I’d write a bit.

John was still out on the balcony when his phone rang. It was Greg, again.

“They found him not guilty. Not guilty! Can you believe that? He breaks into the three highest security buildings and they find him not guilty!” John flinches from Greg’s outburst.

Then his mind catches up. “Wait, you mean Moriarty walks free?” He tries not to sound scared about what this might mean for Sherlock.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. There’s a lunatic out on the streets doing God knows what.” 

John remains silent, he’s thinking about telling Mycroft to get bodyguards and whatnot placed in front of Sherlock’s room.

“Anyways. Speaking of lunatic, how is he doing?” Greg asks.

“He’s....” John goes silent. He doesn’t have a clue of how Sherlock is doing. Hell, he didn’t know how he was doing the past two bloody years! 

“John..?” Greg sounds worried now.

“He’s on the mend.” John lies as he pointlessly looks back inside to the station. “Sorry, I really can’t talk right now. If Moriarty is out there, we have to keep Sherlock safe.”

“Do you want me to come? I could send you a few officers.” Greg offers.

“No, that’s alright. I’m gonna get Mycroft on this. You know how he is all about keeping Sherlock safe.” And what good had it done for him? What’s the point of hiring nannies when they don’t keep your children out of harms way, and instead cause them irreversible harm? Granted, Mycroft had probably been at school for at least half of the day, given their age difference. John really shouldn’t be mad at Mycroft for this; he sure as hell hadn’t touched his little brother in that sort of way. 

No, the only person to blame is whoever dared to lay a finger on a helpless, young Sherlock.

“If you’re sure.” Greg’s voice brings him back to reality.

“I am sure. But keep me updated if you get any news about Moriarty.” 

“Will do. You keep an eye on him. I don’t know who attacked him this time, but just don’t leave him alone.” 

“I won’t.” He will never, ever leave Sherlock out of his sight again. 

They say their goodbyes and hang up, and John heaves a sigh. 

He should go back to Sherlock, but somehow just being in the same room as him, seeing him like this, is like stepping into a different universe. It makes it all too real.

_ Of course it’s bloody real. Sherlock would call you an idiot right now.  _ John scolds himself. He puts his hands into his pockets to put his phone back, and the fingers of his other hand curl around a small bottle. 

The valerian pill bottle. From Sherlock’s room.

He doesn’t know what exactly made him take it with him. Sherlock gets enough medication in this hospital as it is. The tiny valerian pills seem like a joke in comparison.

Besides, how did he think that conversation would go? ‘Here, I found them, please just take a few, it’s okay’ when Sherlock is already anxiety ridden? 

He shakes his head and walks past the family, back inside the ward.

John is shocked to see a shaky Sherlock stumbling slowly further and further away from his bed. “Sherlock! You’re supposed to call a nurse-“

“Don’t need anyone.” Sherlock growls at him and keeps walking. He’s holding on to the IV stand for support and stubbornly makes his way to the small en-suite bathroom. 

John just rolls his eyes and keeps his distance. If the stubborn git collapses on the way back, then so be it. Maybe it would teach him a lesson.

John snorts at the thought. 

“Shut up.” Sherlock snaps from behind the door. 

John can’t help but grin. Even traumatized, overdosed on morphine and what seemed to have been a couple massive anxiety attacks, and Sherlock is incorrigible as always.

The grin washes from his face in two seconds when he realizes that this is exactly what Sherlock had been doing for over two years. He is a master at deceiving others. He was breaking on the inside, battling demons that probably don’t even have a face - at least there weren’t any visual descriptions written in that note - all the while putting on a brave face, pretending like everything is fine when all he did was want everything to stop.

John feels cold shivers running down his spine. 

Sherlock comes back and goes to immediately sit down on the bed. “Did you at least bring me any clothes? This hospital gown is atrocious.” He complains, and John forces himself to stay in reality and not to wander off with his thoughts again. He could guilt trip himself later.

“Yeah, I packed you some things that I thought you’d like.” He replies and crouches down to one of the bags that he hadn’t bothered to sort into the wardrobes yet. He takes out the blue dressing gown and holds it out to a displeased looking Sherlock. “You won’t be going out for a while. No need for those fancy suits.” 

“I hope you did at least pack one of those ‘fancy suits’ for when they let me go.” Sherlock says with a glare, but takes the folded clothes from John.

“Oh hang on, we have to unhook you for a sec.” John realizes.

Sherlock proceeds in screwing off the IV tube, much to John’s annoyance. He moves to grab the dangling tube and close the valve at the top, while Sherlock fumbles to open the knot at his back.

When John turns back to Sherlock, he notices that his friend was frozen. 

“Sherlock?” John asks. 

Sherlock jerks his head for a second. “I need pants.”

John is confused for a moment. “I gave you- oh,  _ pants _ .” He’d forgotten that Sherlock just had a catheter removed. They probably only gave him one of the flimsy net underpants, since their bags were untouched. 

And for some (very understandable) reasons, he didn’t want to show his barely protected lower half to John. 

John takes out a pair, nods to Sherlock and then steps outside. 

-

Every movement felt like his muscles were doused in acid. He felt weak, run down, hit by a truck. And yet he felt very different than he did during his last withdrawals.

Of maybe he just deleted some things from his mind palace. But since he can’t access it, he won’t know. Either way, he feels utterly horrible.

After two painful minutes he’s finally out of the hospitals excuse for clothes and in his own, familiar clothes. 

He can’t figure out what John meant by ‘you won’t be going outside for a while’. How long do they plan on keeping him here? The 72 hours of suicide watch? How long has he been here already?

He doesn’t even want to go home. That’s the scary part. He doesn’t feel safe there. Nowhere is safe. Too many prying eyes. Too many conflicting emotions. Too many, too many, too many.

He jumps when there is a knock on the door. “Sherlock? Are you done?”

“Yes.” _Done with_ **_ everything _ ** .

John hesitantly comes back inside. He awkwardly comes next to his bed. “Why didn’t you reconnect your IV?” He inquires, but there is none of the typical annoyance with Sherlock in his voice.

Sherlock huffs at that. He knows what’s in the smaller bag. And he wants to get just the smallest effect of the morphine that he could possibly still get. 

He also knows that that chance has long since left the station, that all he will get are the severe withdrawal symptoms without the nalaxone. But he doesn’t care.

He feels something on his arm and immediately pulls away, glaring at John who had tried to reconnect him to the IV while he wasn’t paying attention. 

“Sherlock-“

“No! I can refuse, I know my rights. Leave me alone.” Sherlock finally snaps.

“You’re not thinking straight because you’re detoxing. You aren’t really angry, the withdrawal is making you irritable. And I sure as hell am not going to leave you alone.” John gently reasons. He tries again to take Sherlock’s arm, and Sherlock jumps up from the bed and stumbles a few steps backwards. 

“Stop it! I told you to leave me alone!” He’s yelling now, hoping that at some point a nurse will come in and have John removed.

This is all just a ruse anyways. This has Mycroft written all over it. John hates him, he knows that. He is just playing an act to keep his meddling brother at ease. Keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn’t relapse again. And snitch on him if and when he does relapse.

“I’m done playing your stupid games Mycroft!” Sherlock yells.

“What? Sherlock, he isn’t here.” He hears John lying.

“Bullshit,” Sherlock cusses, smirking when he sees John frown. “Where are the mics? In the bags? Your pockets? Maybe he even bugged this room and hidden a camera.” 

John shakes his head. “No Sherlock, neither you, me or this room are bugged.” He’s coming towards Sherlock and Sherlock backs further away, against the wall and bathroom entrance. He sees his chance and retreats, locking the door and leaning against it for good measure.

“Sherlock..” John sighs. “You’ll get stronger withdrawal symptoms soon if you don’t let the meds help you.” 

“I don’t care.”

“Yes you do. Nobody in their right mind wants to suffer through those. You have a history, you’ve done this before. Why would you refuse something that would make it easier?”

“Like you said, I’ve done this before. I don’t need help. I want to be released.” He doesn’t have a plan on where to go, but he is definitely not going to stay here with John pestering him, and he is even more not going back to 221B. 

“Sherlock please...” 

-

John doesn’t know what to do. He’s standing before the locked bathroom door, wondering just how serious Sherlock currently is. He’s definitely paranoid and irritable. It wouldn’t be long before the more... uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms will start, and he really doesn’t want his friend to be in any more pain. 

He suddenly hears a muffled sound. It sounds like a mix of absolutely manic laughter and... sobbing. 

John stays still, listening as it slowly turns into distressed cries and the labored breathing quickens.

He has made up his mind. He quickly retreats and gets the ward sister again.


	6. Seize the day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized what a bad author I am, because I had this chapter done for ages and for some reason never uploaded it. Well, here you go.

“Hey, hey hey! What are you- _Stop_!” John yells at the three nurses holding Sherlock down on the bed and strapping padded handcuffs on his wrists and ankles - or at least attempting to.

“The patient is psychotic.” One of the nurses tells him and John feels even more anger rising.

“The patient has a name, and what you are doing is causing a lot more distress! He is _not_ psychotic!”

“He is trying to attack the hospital staff, we can’t allow that.” The nurse argues with him. John has a hard time listening to her over Sherlock’s attempts at fighting off the many hands on him with his last free limp - his left foot.

“Please, I get that he’s a bit hostile right now but you have to get those restrains off of him. He...” How do I explain this?

“I’m sorry but it’s policy. We’re a bit reluctant to keep sedating him.” And the second that the last restraint is on, Sherlock starts hyperventilating.

John rolls his eyes at the staff. Shouldn’t they be trained to differentiate between psychotic aggression and simply acting out from anxiety?

They are all up in Sherlock’s face, telling him to calm down, telling him that everything is perfectly fine.

John wants to slaughter all of them. “Okay enough! Take those stupid restraints off _right now_ and leave!”

“Excuse me?” The nurse that likes to argue perks up again.

“You heard me perfectly.” John says in his Captain Watson voice and takes on his soldier stance.

“Just do as he says.” Relents the ward sister and starts to uncuff Sherlock. He flinches when her hands go near him once again.

“We’re taking them off, okay?” John asks and waits for Sherlock to give the ‘okay’.

When he gets a quick nod, John and the ward sister make quick work of taking them off. As soon as Sherlock is free again, he curls up in a ball, hiding his arms between his chest and legs, and keeping his feet pressed tightly to his body.

The ward sister taps John on the shoulder. “A word, please.” Then she turns to the second, quiet nurse. “Jenny, you keep watch, please.” The young nurse nods.

John is taken to the nurse station. The ward sister closes the door behind them; they are alone. “Okay. Look, Doctor Watson. I understand your position. But you can’t go bossing around the staff in this hospital. Right now, right here, you are simply a friend of a patient here, with special rights in staying here with your friend.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Really, I’m sorry. But you don’t understand. You can’t restrain him like that, it will only cause him to panic even more.”

She sighs. “We can’t keep sedating him every time he gets scared. He already got the foley removed, we have no way to monitor his kidneys except for regular urine samples, which I’m guessing he won’t be cooperative either.”

“Can’t argue with that..” John comments quietly. “Listen.. Sherlock is not the most cooperative patient. But he’s not being difficult on purpose. At least not this time, I believe. He’s.. he’s going through something really heavy.”

“Mm. We have reason to believe that this was a deliberate overdose, even though he stated otherwise.”

John feels his heart clenching at her words. He knows, deep down, that she is correct in her assumptions. But it’s a fact that he hasn’t come to accept as of yet. To hear it being spoken out loud..

“Can we trust you to keep watch, and to call for one of our staff to take over whenever you leave the room?” She asks him seriously.

“Of course.”

“You won’t have to keep constant watch at night, of course. We have regular check rounds.” She assures him, as though he needs any reassurances.

-

Sherlock refused to talk to John for the rest of the day, denied any help from him on his IV forced trips to the loo, and always laid with his back turned to John. (John took that time to secretly send Mycroft a message about the potential Moriarty threat.)

He refused every meal they offered, only accepting the teas.

John was left to wonder how in the world he was going to fix their relationship as they both succumbed to the pull of sleep at 1am.

-

John doesn’t know what has woken him up at first. Then he realizes that the bed next to his sofa, which had been moved in here for him in exchange for the chair, is shaking from the force of the tremors wrecking Sherlock’s body.

“Shit. Shit!” He hurries to press the nurse call button, then refrains from touching Sherlock afterwards.

The door opens soon enough, and John wastes no time in stating the obvious. “He’s seizing.”

As the nurse calls for a certain muscle relaxing medication, John makes a further discovery thanks to the light shining through the opening of the door. “He’s awake.” He states, confused. _He’s seizing and awake?_

“Sherlock? Sherlock, can you hear me?” He asks, and sure enough, Sherlock turns his head to look at him, while his body appears to be having a fit. He curls tighter into a ball, and John can see the goosebumps littering his shaking arms where the sleeves fell down a bit, and the sweat-drenched curls sticking to his forehead. He wishes that Sherlock still had the heart monitor, which they had taken away after the foley was removed.

The nurse injects something into his port, and the tremors start to lessen a bit. Sherlock has his eyes closed again and John wonders if he’s asleep.

“I’m going to put a note in for his doctor. This is the third time this happened.” The nurse tells John.

Only then does he realize that he did see it before - when Sherlock wanted John to take out the foley. Although it wasn’t as severe, then. “He’ll probably be planned for an EEG tomorrow.” The nurse continues and exchanges the empty IV bag for a new one.

“He was lucid. Epilepsy doesn’t work like that.” John says. Plus there was the missing tongue bite, though it doesn’t necessarily happen every time.

“That’s for his doctor to decide. Ring the bell if it happens again.” She tells him and leaves the room again.

-

A few hours later, around 4am, John is awoken once again from his room mate.

This time it isn’t because of another seizure. John recognizes the movements and pained noises from that one audio recording.

“Sherlock.” John calls him, standing next to the bed but once again refrains from touching him. “Sherlock wake up, it’s okay.”

Sherlock startles awake and, when he sees the dark silhouette next to his bed, sucks in a gasp.

“It’s just me, it’s okay.” John says softly.

Sherlock sighs as he lets himself fall back on the bed. Then he slowly pushes himself to a sitting position and scoots to the edge of his bed, feet dangling.

“What are you doing?” John asks.

Sherlock stays silent for a while, then gets up and takes the IV stand with him again. “Have to piss.” He murmurs as he makes his way to the bathroom.

John doesn’t comment. The sun is slowly rising, so there is a faint light coming through the blinds. Otherwise he would have gone and turned on a light.

He can’t help but notice how slow Sherlock’s movements are. Like every move is painful.

Given the weird fits he’s been having, it probably is.

-

They stay awake, neither is able to get any further rest.

Sherlock once again refuses to touch his breakfast, only gulps down the coffee. John doesn’t want it to go to waste, and doesn’t feel like going to the cafeteria, so he does the deed for him.

It’s barely after 8 when they take Sherlock for the EEG.

John takes that moment to call Mycroft again.

“Any luck with the names?”

“We had to find the folder with the old printed out bank account histories, but we managed to get 22 names so far. Most of which are females, so that certainly helps matters. Where are you, or better yet: where is my brother? You wouldn’t call with him in the same room.”

John sighs. “They took him for an EEG. He keeps having... weird fits.”

Mycroft is quiet for a while.

“Fits?”

“They look like seizures but he’s lucid. In fact, I think the one last night probably woke him up.” John explains.

Mycroft is silent once more.

“What is it?” John asks.

“I believe I have seen that before, with him. We thought it was just really bad chills, that he was fighting some sort of virus.”

“How old was he?”

“I think one time he was around eight maybe, the other time around fourteen. But I don’t know for certain.”

They are both silent. Both wondering the same thing.

What had triggered them, back then?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you know my (long) autism fic, you'll know what kind of seizures I am giving Sherlock, once again. Needless to say, I am a psychopath and just make Sherlock suffer like me, everywhere.


End file.
